From: jeffreydanielrubard@gmail.com   
      
   On Friday, December 24, 2021 at 10:54:05 PM UTC-8, Jeffrey Rubard wrote:   
   > On Friday, December 24, 2021 at 12:19:36 AM UTC-8, Jeffrey Rubard wrote:    
   > > On Saturday, December 18, 2021 at 10:42:08 PM UTC-8, Jeffrey Rubard wrote:    
   > > > On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 12:03:37 PM UTC-7, jeffr...@gmail.com   
   wrote:    
   > > > > Merry's Big Books    
   > > > >    
   > > > >    
   > > > > A topic I recently raised in Clark County, Washington: "What can you   
   just say about Robert W. Merry, the mysterious doyen of American   
   crypto-conservatism hitherto unknown to Washington journalism?"    
   > > > >    
   > > > >    
   > > > > My answer was this:    
   > > > >    
   > > > >    
   > > > > There are two important books by "Merry", *A Country of Vast Designs*   
   about James K. Polk and *McKinley: Architect of the American Century*.    
   > > > >    
   > > > >    
   > > > > Polk was actually a Whig and McKinley a Republican, but the distance   
   between two ought not to be reckoned great: the Republicans were arguably a   
   "successor" party to the Whigs purified of the influence of people like Henry   
   Clay.    
   > > > >    
   > > > >    
   > > > > I have never been a Republican; I never even vote for Republican   
   candidates. Still, if you want America you must cope with its historical   
   tradition and people "distasteful" to you who are part of it. (Ardent   
   Democrats ought to remember there is    
   not a "standard of excellence" associated with joining the Democratic Party,   
   if you will.)    
   > > > >    
   > > > >    
   > > > > I can find fault with neither of these two men on account of the   
   "models" they offered to later Americans and what they chose to, or had to,   
   do. Polk was associated with the real "opening of the American West", a phrase   
   which not ought to hold    
   terrors for those familiar with what the Louisiana Purchase buys you.    
   > > > >    
   > > > >    
   > > > > It is very arguable that there would have been no Abraham Lincoln   
   without James K. Polk, as Lincoln's early years in Illinois and Illinois   
   politics. Similarly, if McKinley was not quite the "architect of American   
   empire" that Roosevelt was he was    
   something of a model for even how a man of wealth and distinction could have   
   (almost) "Just One Wife".    
   > > > >    
   > > > >    
   > > > > Could be said.    
   > > > > Jeff Rubard    
   > > > Yeah, no, nobody in Washington state ever heard of a real person named   
   "Robert W. Merry". (They still care a bit, too.)    
   > > > I do look a bit like the guy.    
   > > >    
   > > > Jeffrey Rubard    
   > > In other words, 'to all appearances' images of Robert W. Merry were   
   derived mechanically from my literal face. Etc.   
   > On the other hand, no: the picture of McKinley is really of the President,   
   not his grandson who 'looks like that'.   
      
   (The pictures of "Robert W. Merry" were apparently mechanically derived from   
   my face by means of a digital camera. "It's like that.")   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)